Vincent Trauth

When you talk to Vincent Trauth about the many different roles he plays in the musical life of central Illinois, what comes through isn’t just his dedication, his versatility or his knowledge. That’s all there, but it’s the sense that he’s having so much fun that makes the biggest impression.

Whether he’s teaching a roomful of piano students at Parkland College, singing lead vocals for "Light My Fire" with his classic rock band Midlife Crisis, or hosting a classical music program for WILL-FM, Vincent takes a lot of pleasure in his work.

His job as Sunday morning and occasional fill-in host on WILL-FM gives him a chance to share the music he loves with listeners. "It’s a great feeling to be able to walk in on Sunday morning to create a program with the world’s greatest music," says Vincent. "It sounds like a cliché to call it that, but there’s a reason the music we play is still around."

Vincent tries to make a connection for listeners between music and its place in history. "So many people think classical music is ancient. If you can tell people what was happening in the world when the music was written, they might see that maybe it’s not so old after all."

Vincent’s love of music and his interest in radio both go back to his childhood in the Chicago area. When he was 3, his mom bought him his own LPs. One was "How to Conduct an Orchestra" that came shrink-wrapped with its own baton; the others were an album of Sousa marches and a recording of "Peter and the Wolf" with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. Vincent began taking piano lessons when he was 4. "As a youngster, my overarching passion was music," he says.

After high school, Vincent worked as a plumber’s apprentice and a dental lab technician, and tried out several college majors including pre-med and psychology before returning to his early interest in music. He majored in music education, getting both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Illinois.

As for radio, he did a mock radio show in 8^th grade, "kind of a crazy morning radio" show. People had always told him he had a radio voice. His first radio job was a 1992-1994 stint as an announcer at public radio station WTEB-FM in New Bern, N.C., and he found the skills it required came naturally. "The way I sounded was part genetics and part having listened to classical music announcing on the radio all my life," says Vincent. He became a classical music host at WILL-FM in 1996 after moving back to Champaign-Urbana from Akron, Ohio, where he was a CD buyer and seller, and occasional music programmer for WCLV’s "Cleveland Chamber Music Society Presents."

At Parkland, where he teaches groups of piano students equipped with headsets and electronic keyboards, he’s created some of his own teaching materials. He hopes to expand the materials into a textbook. Using a light-up keyboard diagram, he first teaches students to play familiar tunes by sound, then to identify notes by letter name and finally to read traditional notation. "It’s important, even for a beginner, to teach with music that’s inspiring," he says. Most of his students are music majors right out of high school, but he’s also taught a beginning piano workshop for adults and a music appreciation course.

When he’s not working, teaching private piano lessons or caring for his young daughter, Vincent often sits down at his grand piano to play Beethoven sonatas just for fun. "There’s such a wealth of beautiful and timeless melodies and harmonies, that, as difficult as they can be to play, they bring such enjoyment to me," he says.

© 2008 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS